Monotonous Slogs - 112 ; Milestones - 1

At long last I can write a blog post without having to worry that I sound like a whiny fourteen-year old (no offense intended to said teenagers). And the reason for my sunny disposition is that after nearly nine months of seemingly endless carving, I have something to show for it all. And, as is so often the case in guitar building, it just seemed to jump out from nowhere.

Preparing the glue the box

I've become so accustomed to setting dates for milestones only to see them float by over and over that I was really caught off guard when I found myself actually gluing my box together this week. I knew I was getting somewhere close, but I fully expected it to be at least a week, and more likely two or three, before I got to it.

But after getting to class and spending an hour or so sanding the insides of my top and back and touching up this and that, I found myself coming up empty when I tried to think of other things to do before the glue up. This is where Ted normally comes in for inspection and identifies a list as long as my arm of details I need to iron out. But not this time.

So the next thing I knew I was fitting it together, lining things up and then dry-clamping it all. (That's where you clamp it all together, but without the glue. That way you can be sure it's going to fit together perfectly and that there aren't any potential problems). And then, just like that - I was gluing the back to the sides.

This is small difference in flat top and arch top construction. With a flat top, the back and top are glued to the sides simultaneously. In this case, they're glued one at a time. Normally, you would do one part, wait a few minutes, then do the other. And I could have glued the top, too, but it turns out there were a few small advantages in waiting until next week, so that's what I did. One of the small details is that I was so caught off guard that I hadn't even made a label yet. I could have fit it in through the sound hole, but it will be much easier to do it with the top still off.

Gluing the back to the sides

Suddenly, I'm very excited again. I'm looking forward to the next steps, which will undoubtedly be a little more interesting than another month of carving. Once I get it glued, I'll be cutting away the excess wood so that the back and top are flush with the sides, then sanding the whole thing. It won't be the final sanding by a long shot, but just to the rough edge. Then it will be on to the binding a purfling.

Finally!